IS Virus: Episode 5 -Outbreak-
by tonbonkittybon
Summary: The main players are now tested against their own resolve, as well as the resolve of those who wish to interfere with their goals. Many have tried to enter the trials. Few have survived. What's to become of those few? Are they doomed to insanity, or will they transcend humanity? The time has finally come to for the ultimate trial to begin. Prepare yourselves. The virus spreads.
1. Please, Never Do That Again

_Episode 5: Outbreak_

 _Part 1: Please, Never Do That Again..._

Earlier that day...

Afternoon on Mt. Ogusu...the sun shone its radiance upon the entire mountainside. Bluebirds rising from the horizon and singing their lovely calling songs. A gentle breeze swaying the trees and leaves to and fro, brushing against the soft pillow of grass surrounding the trees...

That same breeze brushing against a scarred place, distraught with a tear in its landscape...

The sensation triggered an action potential of mild pain from the scalp throughout the body.

"Nn..nnnn..."

Laura finally woke up, it seemed. She stayed on the ground, lying motionless in anticipation for a signal from the heavens to grant her permission to wake up. She slowly, lazily opened her eyes ad surveyed the area around her.

Completely surrounded by shady trees; various, curious birds perched behind the greenery; the summer winds swaying her hair, occasionally piercing her forehead with sharp needles of air...

She stretched as hard as she could and stood herself up. For a second, she looked puzzled, wondering how she wound up in the mountainside.

Ah, that's right. She had escaped from the cemetery facility. The police had caught up to her in an attempt to arrest her, but she refused them their victory. In a desperate and blind attempt to unleash her pent-up rage, she blasted her railgun through the roof and took to the skies to rain down her weapons of wrath. But one of them shielded herself with something large, almost like her own IS. She was too blinded in her own rage to truly see that, though. After wiping out everyone else, she charged straight into her. But she was socked by a huge metal fist. Afterwards, she was repeatedly kicked and scratched, until the final blow when she was punted all the way to Mt. Ogusu. And now, here she was...

"So, it has come to this," she muttered, "Well, it won't be long before Ich-uh-HE...begins to fret over this matter...So be it-huh?"

She didn't notice until she nudged a small bag that was left beside her when she was unconscious, "Who would-"

Ah, that's it. After she contacted Clarissa for the last time, one of her soldiers must've dropped off a care kit for her, knowing how she would object to being taken back to the Academy. For personal reasons.

But now's not the time to worry about that. She opened the bag to inspect its contents.

"What is all this?..." Well, it's not really a care kit. More like a disguise kit. A wig, a hairnet to conceal her original hair, a black dress, a set of contact lenses, a few accessories, some money, and a first aid kit.

"So, that is how we will play out this mission..." They know her face now. She has to go incognito and blend in with the crowd if she is ever to get anywhere close to the renegade. She pulled out the wig and hairnet first. But then, she stopped midway.

Even with some of her hair gone, she still has too much for the hairnet to handle. If she is to disguise herself, she must remove any and all traces of her former appearance, with the risk of being isolated from her comrades for an indefinite period of time. But given her track record on and off the battlefield, that should be nothing to her. What is something to her is the most important connection she will be cutting off.

Ichika...the man she had always chased after, who she admired for his unparalleled strength within himself...now just another abandoned memory simply because he favored another girl, one that has been with him longer than she has. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

She unsheathed her knife and sliced nearly all of her hair off, including what one of her dear friends coined her other trademark. She waited until the final target fell to the ground, and gathered all the hair clumps into one pile. Next, she reached for the hair-set. She cupped her hair into the hairnet. Then, she donned the wig.

Then it was her uniform's time to go. She checked her current environment for any possible peeping toms. When she confirmed their absence, she quickly undressed herself, uniform and all, then quickly gathered her fallen articles into a pile and heaped it onto of her fallen hair. She grabbed the dress and a choker and slipped into them.

She checked herself on her progress so far. The dress seems to be in order. She snugged her hair in perfectly. She was worried about her boots standing out, but they actually blended in with the rest of her outfit. All that was left was...her face.

She ran her fingers gently across her eyepatch. So many memories made because of her hidden power, power she had to cover up. Her golden eye was flawed, but it was her gateway to incredible power. Whenever she removed her eyepatch, that is. However, she has been questioning whether she should completely ditch the patch due to the constant assaults on her friends, as well as the strikes on various enemy hideouts.

This was a different story. If she has her patch at all, they can easily recognize her. She doesn't have a choice now. She has to do something she struggled with since the VT System incident. But they did remove it from her IS, so it can't activate it anymore, right? But then, there is that risk that she could become very angry and cause something dormant inside her to erupt and unleash her wrath on the nearby populace, just like a certain renegade. The thought of the possibility of becoming one of him made her insides cringe, but her outward appearance cannot allow that to become transparent.

She cut off her eyepatch, revealing the golden eye given to her at birth. She looked to the clouds in the sky as she placed the red contact lens on her eye. She blinked her eyes a few times to settle the lens in. When she was ready to see her transformation, she took a deep breath and held out her hand mirror to view her new look.

It looked completely natural. Brown short hair with red eyes, choker, black frilly dress and boots. With this, she can blend in more easily with the Japanese people. But she couldn't help but smile for some reason. To her, she didn't look like that girl who had her hair ripped off. She looked like someone who was raised in a well-to-do family. Like she actually found her place in the open world. She turned to her patch, just about to fall off her hand until she clutched it by the string. She gave it one last, almost apologetic goodbye.

Finally, she set it alongside the rest of pile. Then, she lit up a match and hovered it above her old set of clothes. She paused a bit, staring at her uniform for a few seconds. She closed her eyes and silently prayed. Prayed for the safety of her comrades, for the safety of the world, and for the capture and submission of the renegade.

She dropped the match. The fire spread all across her uniform. It was as if she had created an altar to offer a final sacrifice to Dionysus, communicating her last moments of freedom, merriment and ecstasy. No longer will she be allowed to make merry, befriend strangers, or breathe without the constant surveillance from the public eye. She must now abandon all pretense of freedom of expression and live among the crowd, in unrelenting pursuit of her prey.

She watched the smoke billow all the way to the sky as the fire grew into an uncontrollable inferno. Then, she threw the bag into the flames, cuffed her kit and money, and ran as fast as she could.

A few hours later...

A rather large flatscreen TV was projecting the headlines to an outdoor cafe:

"A wildfire has been spotted on Mt. Ogusu. Firefighters have promptly responded to the distress call made by a sightseeing tourist and successfully eliminated the fire before it could spread to the residential areas. So far, no one on the scene has been able to determine the exact cause of the fire, and the only clues found were a huge ash pile and a burnt-out match. Witnesses say that the renegade has been instigating riots throughout the country, carried out by male teenagers and middle-agers, and believe that the fire was a method to-"

"Ugh...why am I not surprised?..." Laura was sipping on her latte, trying to ease her mind with this new environment. How anybody was able to stomach these biased news reels was beyond her. Not three years ago did the world's leading superpowers gather at the summit to discuss the gender imbalance of power according to the debacle caused by the IS, as well as how to "move forward" due to Ichika's decision to support a girl other than her...

...only to have...this...shoved down everyone's throats.

"*sigh...* This was not at all prevalent before...Oh, and look at that. Two angry women screaming at the top of their lungs even though they're arguing the same position..." Such humor to be found in pointless arguments about the chaos of man...

"Oh! Oh! Thank god!"

Someone blurted out. Laura turned towards the commotion. It was an unruly man trying to grab attention from the masses, but was abruptly stopped by a waitress.

"Heh, good luck, fool," she quietly commented, "There's no changing the law of the land now..." She turned back to the newscast and- "What the-"

She was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't notice her suddenly empty cup. She noticed a waitress walking near her, "Excuse me?"

"AAGH! What is the matter with you, young lady?! Do you have any idea what's happened here?!"

"Wha-uh...I just wanted another Chai Tea..."

"Oh...Um...Coming right up!" The waitress scurried off.

"Huh?" This reaction was far different from that earlier scuffle, "Much different than when I last visited..." Since when was it a thing to hold a grudge against a customer? Not that that mattered anymore because she's coming back with her latte...and a few answers.

"Here you are, milady," she said, "One Chai Tea Latte."

"Milady? That came out of nowhere..."

"Oh. Well, it's common to address our customers as milady," she explained, "It maintains our service and credibility."

Laura thought, 'HUH?', but she just agreed, "I see, and what about the...y'know?"

"Oh, them?" she asked, "Those wretched, penis-flinging bastards?"

"You just give'em the boot, huh?" And that's how today's conversation started. See, Laura? It's not that bad living incognito! "Back in Germany, we used to just throw whatever food's available on the table."

"Really?" the waitress's curiosity peaked. She sat down in front of her, "Tell me more of this custom."

"Well...wait, are you on break right now?"

"Yeah, for about thirty minutes."

"Ok, ok, ok, get a load of this..."

And they went on for about fifteen minutes before ending with a laugh.

"I didn't know that Germany was still struggling with this issue," the waitress commented, "even though it should've been obvious!"

"I know, right?" Laura just ran with it, "I've been petitioned to the Bundestag, but I still haven't gotten a response yet!"

"It's all because there's a gorilla rampaging in there that nothing gets done. They think that they can rule over us with their "Iron Fists"."

"Turns out that we're the iron, and they're just our fists!"

"Ugh! What I wouldn't give to have them kick him out of the-"

"What's happ...did the renegade do this?"

"What, renegade?"

"Well, that's what everyone calls the thief who stole from the-"

They heard a table clank.

"What was that?" Laura checked for any major disturbances.

"I dunno-Oh..." The waitress stopped her eyes on the same man who shouted for no reason at all, "Hang on a second, ok?"

"Um...sure..." Laura watched the scene unfold in front of her eyes. The waitress was about to give him the boot when someone else jumped in and heeled his behind. He yelped and snapped back at her, but she simply shooed him and his older acquaintance off the cafe grounds. Everyone shunned them both as the two walked off quietly. After that, the waitress returned.

"Whew, sorry about that. They dunno when to quit."

"Indeed. If only the renegade had just stay in his place..."

"Who?"

"Ah...that yellow-haired freak who broke a hole in a-"

"YES! That filthy slime, yes, that's him!"

"To think that a teenage delinquent would cause us this much trouble...this must not bode well for the rest of the world."

"You seem to know a lot about the IS world around us."

"I have to. I'm..." She almost blurted out her pursuit of the renegade. She took a quick breath to disguise her voice as that of a victim and said, "I'm a victim of this sort of thing myself."

"Really? What happened to you?"

"Well...how do I explain..." Yes. How do you explain your childhood isolation while enduring all kinds of tests WITHOUT ACTUALLY TELLING HER? See? "Don't ask, don't tell" sounds stupid when used in this context, doesn't it? "Since the introduction of the IS, everything has changed. My parents forced me to join the army so that I can defend Germany from any threats from the IS. For a while, we enjoyed peace and stability, but then came two problems."

"Two pro-Oh! Wait, Ichika could only operate one because he was Chifuyu's brother! That's not really a problem; everything he does depends on her!"

"He enrolled in the IS Academy, so there's no issue," Laura stopped for a moment to collect her thoughts, "But then comes...him."

"Oh, man. Don't even get me started on him! First thing he does is break into a high-security facility, then he just f***s off for a week. Next thing you know, the mall, the memorial grounds, the Academy itself...this guy's either got a screw of a nerve busted inside his head." Oh, you have no idea...

"A nerve gone would mean that he's trying to rise against the entire world?"

"The guy should just accept it! He's already done because of the IS! The males had it coming since the dawn of society! Why can't they just back off and give us the reins, huh?"

"I swear, it's all kinds of radical conservatism shoved down our throats. It never ceases to amaze me how they still allow them to ramble on like that."

"We showed them last week in front of the Tokyo tower. They all ran away like a bunch of flies!"

"Chiyo!" The manager called from the reception desk, "Break time's over! Let's get back in it!"

"Ah, yes! Coming!" She got up to leave, "So will I see you around here again?"

"Perhaps...But I have to go soon."

"Well, here's your bill. Have a wonderful day, ok?"

"I will. Ciao."

And with that, she went back to serve the other tables, leaving Laura alone. She picked up the bill and saw that woman's phone number. Was she really that much of a talker? Did she really just receive an invite into a circle of intimates? She couldn't help but stare at the bill, this time wondering if she really made the right choice to go undercover or not. But none of that mattered now, because there was something odd about that man's acquaintance. She couldn't figure out what it was though, and she was determined to find out. She paid her bill and followed them to an apartment complex.

Luckily, she rented a fully furnished apartment complex for a month, but that drained over two-thirds of the money allowed to her. Just one of the many things on her mind as she sat herself on a couch and tucked her legs in, allowing those thoughts to overflow her mind.

But that was just the start. During her trip over here, she witnessed firsthand what the waitress was talking about. As if the sensationalistic news articles weren't enough, now there are such things as human coat hangers, restroom attendants to say the nicest, among other demeaning occupations that very few would be willing to put up with to make a decent living...now in the hands of the male. It looked like the female has stepped up its humiliation tactics, treating the male anywhere from nonexistent, to human footstool.

"I wonder if Ichika would really be fine here..." She does recognize his need to protect his comrades, but in a world like this? Where people of his gender are at risk of public humiliation as if it was a way of life? What happened after they graduated the IS Academy? Were they told of any of this?

Now her mind is focused on the safety and sanity of everyone back on that island. How they must be faring with the public eye, civilian and powerful alike. The original ISRCs must be going crazy just trying to keep their own minds on track with the world's unravelling. The renegade's started an uproar all over the world, and Japan, the leading authority on IS technology, now has to answer to the disaster that overtook the storm already caused by the discovery of a second male pilot.

She was just about to go deeper into though when she heard a door slam from across the hall. That snapped her back into her mind.

"Ugh...never again..." she said as she rubbed her eyes and felt around her stomach, "Hmm?...How long have I..." Let's see, you arrived here at around 15:00, so...Ah...It's ni-

"FOUR HOURS?! I've been drowning in my own mind for four hours?!" Thinking that long makes one's head hurt and stomach growl. And considering her current situation, she needs to load up. NOW. She trudged out of her apartment to where the door was slammed and knocked on the door.

"Coming!" A childish male voice muffled past the door. When it swung open, "Oh, hello! What'cha doing?"

It's that same kid from the cafe. She inhaled and said, "Would you mind if I joined you for dinner?"

Really? Right outta the blue? You're just gonna-

"Yeah, come on in! You're just in time!" Ok! Let's spill some salt, people!

"Really? I...ok..." She saw herself in and sat at the table. Right between two tall women and in front of someone who could easily cosplay as a young maid.

"Uh, kid?" The black-haired woman said, "Why'd you let in another pipsqueak?"

"Come on, you bought too much food!" He snapped, "Even for me, I'm seeing about a week's worth for all of us."

"Really?" The blonde-haired woman inquired, "I've never heard of a family living on just this amount of food for a week."

"It's easy if you know how and when to actually eat," the male swanked, "The key is to eat strategically. Load up just before it's actually time for lunch, but take it easy on the breakfast and dinner."

"Take it easy?" The orange-haired woman joked, "Yeah, 'cuz spaghetti and meatballs is sooo light in calories."

"Hey, don't be snappy for wanting something I never once ate in my entire life!" The boy snapped.

"You've never had spaghetti?" Laura asked.

"Sad, isn't it?" The blondie jumped in, "He's never tasted the divine strand of Italy, even if his life depended on it!"

"Oh, yeah?!" He couldn't resist, "Well, taste this!" He twirled his fork endlessly until a huge chunk of noodles, tomato sauce, and meat accumulated within the pile. Once he lifted his fork, he began his work.

"Ooo! Getting ballsy, aren't ya?"

"Tch...I've seen better."

"Hey, get the camera! We must preserve this moment!"

"Wha-you too?!"

"Come on, wolf it all down!"

"I'm going outside..."

"CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!~~~"

Not even five minutes before the first bite was taken, and already they thought of Laura as a part of their broken family. They never asked her name because they didn't need to, nor did they want to. She just stared at the miracle that has taken place atop the dinner table, all cause by a jokester of all people.

"Jawohl...never again," she whispered to herself before splashing some water on his shorts, inciting the stupidest thing you could possibly do when you're hungry.

Outside, the black-haired petite woman sat on a wooden chair, trying to enjoy her meal while drowning out the noise inside the apartment. But it was impossible for her to even blink without something agitating her every single moment she's awake. She slowly went on with her meal when she noticed a golden glimmer beside her feet. It came from a small locket, half opened and showing a picture of someone who looked a lot like her, but was older. She quickly stomped it into pieces and kicked it off the balcony. Then, she propped her feet on the rail.

"Never...EVER again..." she silently hissed as she sipped her soda and continued with the night's entertainment...

...a lone star shimmering alongside the full moon.


	2. Wrong Target, Dumb-Ass!

_Part 2: Wrong Target, Dumb-Ass!_

Lone star, indeed. Back on the devastated island, Chifuyu was sitting on a branch on a tree, right in the middle of the entire scene. She's still reeling from what happened mere hours ago. This renegade is driving everyone crazy, even more so for the most seasoned stress warriors. I mean, Look at this! The world's most powerful weapon is in the hands of the world's most dangerous idiot, a hole has ben blown wide open on their own soil, the media's going crazy sensationalizing this situation...

...and to top it all off, she slapped her own brother. Not a whacko-slap, like usual when he's acting like a dunce. This was a for real slap. She felt like she had absolutely no reason to do so. She didn't know what the hell came over her when Ichika was telling her off.

She was still staring at the moon when Honne slowly approached her tree from behind.

"Orimura-sensei...?"

"*sigh...* I'm not your sensei anymore, ok?"

"I know...I just wanted to-"

"Just, what? Just wanted to squeeze a breath of sorry from me?"

"Well, no...not yet, anyway..."

"Whaddaya want, Nohotoke?..."

"I just wanted to see if you were ok...That's all..."

"Just don't...I need to be alone right now."

"Ok, but just so you know...Orimū doesn't..." And that was the trigger for Chifuyu to turn around and spot her brother at the third fallen arena site, where he was leading construction workers inside the island, to the area where everyone was pitching in to help with the salvage efforts. He was actually struggling himself to keep the operation together. Everyone else was scattered on the island, helping in either relief or recovery efforts. For some reason, she felt an uneasy sensation broiling in her stomach whenever she sees him trying to pick up her slack. She swallowed her pride as she hopped down from the tree to meet with Ichika.

And here it is. Arena 1. Where a certain someone decided to completely scrap it in favor of a new, more powerful arena, which was ahead of schedule. Too many soldiers in IS units and German Valkyrie armor to tell what's going on. But she could see Ichika in the Byakushiki once more, helping with the outer wall. She slowly approached him.

"Ichika..."

"Hmm?" He turned behind and saw her, and then immediately turned back to help with the construction, "Oh, for...what do you want?"

"I just wanna talk with you about something."

"Not now, Chifuyu. I'm busy. Ah, no. That panel goes over there."

Did he just refer to her by her just first name? No, no, no, over one night, that can't be right.

"Ichika, we have to settle this once and for-"

He dismounted from the Byakushiki, "Harfouch, you and Walter head on over to IS Maintenance Area 2-4 to help Tabane."

And she's now annoyed. "Dude, will you just listen to me?!" She tried to grab his arm, but he quickly swatted her away.

"That's all I've been doing, ok?!" He shouted, "Every time, I've responded to your requests, no matter how crazy they are because I loved you! We're family, I get that! But do you think it'd kill you to ease up on everyone else?! Seriously, you can't even use a hint of sarcasm when you joke about someone's hair without a goddam shot of sake!"

"Uh-what's that supposed to me-" A pile of supplies just landed.

"Look, I gotta get back there, but you gotta check up on Yamada and Cecilia." And with that, he quickly remounted and drafted away from her.

"Wha-that's all I get?!" Chifuyu screamed in disbelief, "Not even a-"

"JUST CARE ABOUT SOMEONE OTHER THAN ME, ALRIGHT?!" So, the truth finally wills itself out, eh?

And that was the end of that. He left to set the materials down safely, leaving his own sister to wonder what the hell just happened. She was just shunned by her own brother, that's what happened! Her brother, whom she had to look after since their parents abandoned them, whom she personally raised to stand among the elite of the IS world...

...was he being ungrateful? Or being overwhelmed? None of that mattered however, as usual.

"Well, fine!" She shrieked, "If that's how you wanna repay me for everything I've done for you! If that's how you value how I've cared for you all these years, and you're just gonna treat it all like one big lie?!"

"Just like how you cared for Madoka? Oh, yeah...that was suuuuuch a big lie..." Ay...2-0 Ichika.

She curled her fists and stormed off extremely pissed. Houki hovered past her carrying a bunch of crates. When she found Ichika, she set the crates down and went over to him.

"Y'know...that was wildly inappropriate..."

"I know...but I just don't have the time worry about her right now..."

"Really?" She folded her arms, "'Cuz it looks to me like you're spending your time trying not to worry about-"

"I'm fine! Geez!" Ichika almost accidentally released a palm blast from his left arm, but quickly came to his senses.

"Uh..." She just stood there appalled. But she sighed some relief when he just went over to the crates and leaned against them.

"Sorry...just...I dunno..."

"Dunno about what?"

"She is the most important person in the world to me...but she doesn't realize that she's not the only person in the world. I care more about other people, too. I mean, the world's a big place. And it's definitely not what it used to be anymore. I can't just turn a blind eye to anyone. Not when the renegade's threatening lives out there."

"Is it about M?"

"Yep. She still doesn't regard her as her sister, even though I've done everything I could to get her to realize..."

"It's Chifuyu. No way she's gonna turn over a new leaf just because of a random development."

"Yeah...But there a very few times that I wish she would...this just happened to be one of them." And he was lost in his memories of the three of them together for the first time. Houki felt like she couldn't let him get distracted by those thoughts, so she suddenly called out Amatsuki and hovered over to the pipes.

"Hey, whaddaya doin'?" He asked.

"If these pipes are too large, the arena will wobble and collapse under all the static weight. We have to make consolidated stacks on top of the foundation, and dwindle down until we get to the top row." She sliced the pipes in half and rushed over to find the joiners.

He looked on in admiration for a split second before shaking his head and splashing himself with a bucket of water, "Ok, let's get back in it..." He ripped open the crates before calling out, "Hey, Sean! Lemme see the blueprints again!"

Chifuyu continued to storm angrily through the field of felled trees. She couldn't stand to hear that name again. Madoka...the cursed name which belonged to one unwanted family member. The name she had sworn to erase from her own memory one way or another. She had purposefully kept butting into her younger brother's everyday affairs under the guise of "protecting him" to drown his "imouto" out of his life.

Well, she did it...but at a huge cost. Ichika noticed, but he was too late to stop Madoka from running away again. So, he spent way more time away from home. She tracked him down countless times, only for her efforts to rein him in to constantly be spoiled by someone else. And now...

...Well, honestly, what'd you expect? Sibling rivalry, sister who's been through it all versus sister who's never been through any of it...what more do you need to say? You yourself removed the nano machines from her body, even. And yet, you couldn't let your pride down for just a little bit, could ya? You didn't wanna be like the other girls. But along comes a forgotten younger sister, and suddenly you wanted to be pampered like he tried to pamper her to make her feel welcome, despite maintaining your composure on the outside...

Chifuyu left a trail of tears on her way over to the Central Operations Booth, illuminated only by a single lantern, where Chelsea, Cecilia, and Maya were trying to establish contact with all other ground units in the mainland and stay up to date with recent events, hoping to find some hint of the renegade's whereabouts. One of them spotted her,

"Hey! It's Orimura-sen...se..i..." but not how the first Mondo Grosso champion should be walking...

"Hey, guys..." She slowly walked over to them, face in a complete mess.

"Is everything alright?..." Maya asked.

"I wouldn't say I'm terribly worried..."

"Um...Chelsea, why don't you go prepare some Matcha Tea?" Cecilia asked.

"No, no, it's fine. I don't need any-"

"Please..." Maya grabbed her arm and stared her sympathetically in the eyes, "We can't afford to lose you, too..."

"*sigh...* Ok..." she finally gave in and sat down with the rest of the group to assess the current situation over tea.

"Ok, so nothing big has happened yet," Maya pointed out, "but numerous riots have erupted throughout Japan within one week of the renegade's...work. The highest concentration of riots have occurred in the Hokkaido, Saitama, and Tokyo prefectures. They may not be related to the renegade, but-"

"Hang on. Nothing big?" Chifuyu questioned, "They're riots. Of course, they're big. What I'm wondering is, what are they rioting over?"

"Well..." Cecilia played the footage from Sapporo's Odori Park. A group largely consisted of males (I repeat, LARGELY) have broken in rage against the local populace and police. It was quickly subdued, but it dropped a subtle hint on why it rose in the first place. Someone had a news article of the renegade breaking out of the compound, the picture encircled in pink.

"Ugh...him again..." Chifuyu rubbed her eyes.

"You had to ask..." Chelsea commented.

"It's not like they're not giving up the fight, either. No matter what way they decide to take it, it's bad and good news either way."

"Bad for the public, yes," Maya agreed, "but this could be our chance to pinpoint the renegade's current location."

"How so?" Cecilia asked.

"We need people to infiltrate the mainland under the guise of reporters. All it is is asking questions about their relationship to the renegade, as well as any strange happenings around the surrounding environment."

"So, we're playing 20 Questions, essentially?" Chelsea quipped.

"Possibly more if we're not careful. We don't have a clear description of the renegade anymore because he may have disguised himself again, so we're going for personality quirks. Aggressiveness, recklessness, loudness, just anything to single him out."

"Uh-huh...But, who are we going to send?"

Chifuyu stood up, "I'll go."

"Are you sure?" Cecilia asked nervously.

"Yes. I am very sure."

"It's not just a score to settle, is it?"

"No. I just have more experience dealing with the annoyingly persistent type."

"Oh," that was a reference to every other female on this island, wasn't it?

"Then step this way. We'll get your appearance changed and your ID ready." Cecilia and Chifuyu were about to leave the tent when-

"Miss Yamada?" Chifuyu stopped at the lamp's furthest reach.

"Uh...Yes?" Maya asked.

"Why don't you come with me...for old time's sake?"

"Um...yes, ma'am..." They were both blushing a little bit for some reason.

They both went through the process of inputing fake ID info into the system so that no one would raise suspicions about their presence. Then, they were led to the docking area, where two speedboats awaited them

"There's a care package within each of those boats, which contain everything you will need. No one will be able to find you while you're out at sea, but change clothes an hour before arrival. You will report back to the nest in 72 hours. Is that enough time for you to snuff everything out?"

"More than enough." They both said.

"Right, then. Good luck..." And she just left them there to embark on their journey alone. Halfway to their appointed destinations, they parted ways. But Maya couldn't help herself, so she turned on Private Channel ISA-001:

"Um...Miss Orimura?"

"What is it?"

"Um...about Ichika...He just-"

"That rotten bastard can roast his tiny ass in Hell for all I care!"

"What's with that reaction again?"

"Ugh...it's nothing..."

"But you do care, don't you?"

"Well...maybe..."

"Maybe if you could look at the world through his eyes...you'd see more than one person..."

"What was that?"

"He doesn't care about just one person. He's an all-around type of guy, y'know? He doesn't care at someone's body, or eyes, or even their smile. He just wants to know what's in their heart, and he wants to make as many friends as possible, before he has to hang the coat up for someone else. And he's not at all close-minded when it comes to everyone around him."

"..." Well, there's no denying that.

"I suppose in the end, we all become what we hate..."

"Ok, can we lay off the life clichés for just one mission?!"

"Hahaha...sorry...but I'm just saying. He knows there are bad people out here, but he also knows that no one's bad right off the gate. So he goes out of his way to try and understand them better. And the result is that dense thick-headedness of his because he doesn't see girls as...y'know."

"Ugh...he's so damn naive."

"Hahhh...maybe so, but I think...naiveté's a good thing to have once in a while."

"We're coming up on our destinations, so would you please just shut up now?..." And she forced the disconnection and locked all network connections. She didn't want to hear anyone rub it in her face anymore.

Maya just blanked out at the lost connection before sighing a wise fool's sigh, "Hahhh...and in just ten day's span..." Wait. It's only been ten days since the compound's breakout? Ten days?! TEN F***ING DAYS?!

Meanwhile in Arena 2, where the renegade somehow missed this maintenance area entirely...

"Rrgh...come on, come on!" Tabane was trying to hack into the Silver Streamline's main memory. But it seemed to take an affinity to its previous owner.

ACCESS DENIED. USER UNRECOGNIZED.

"What?! You're just an IS! I should be able to go inside you anytime!"

ACCESS DENIED. USER UNRECOGNIZED.

"What's going on, Tabane?" Clarissa arrived just in time to listen to Tabane's flurries of frustration.

"It's not letting me go in to wipe this thing clean at all!"

"Might I suggest a manual factory reset?" Walter suggested.

"We don't have the materials for a proper reset," Tabane commented, "And the stuff we do have, the renegade totaled completely!"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait...is it so hard to just tear one apart? Considering that this is from the Generation One-"

"It doesn't work like that. You can't just take it apart willy-nilly. There's a certain procedure you have to follow if you don't want anything to blow your head off. These things run on the purest form of energy, after all."

"Huh? How does that even..." Clarissa was lost on "pure energy".

"Can I even download the schematics for this piece of junk?"

ACCESS DENIED. USER UNRECOGNIZED.

"User unrecognized?"

"It means it won't let me in because it didn't sync with me. It's synced to the renegade!"

USER PROFILE IDENTIFIED. APPROPRIATING PROPER PROTECTION PROTOCOL.

"Holy f***ing s***! What the hell's wrong with this thing?"

"Oh, no...don't tell me..." Clarissa crossed her fingers.

"What's happening?" Walter asked.

"This thing's trying to protect itself from my genius!"

"Ugh! Why don't we just go after him now! We can take care of this, no problem!" Clarissa shouted.

"Have you even seen the internet?! There are millions of stories about us just waiting for our presence within their bear claws! No, we have to do this incognito!"

"Rrgh..." Clarissa gritted her teeth, "Well played, renegade..."

"But, Captain Laura's out there right now. She must be close if she volunteered to do this alone." Walter had hoped.

But meanwhile, at the apartment/Phantom Task hideout/tomato war zone...

...yeah, not even joking. Their spaghetti dinner turned into Total War: Food-Hammer.

"Ugh...in the end, we weren't able to get that much into our systems after all..." Autumn was cleaning the dishes, Squall was mopping up the floors, and Sokoto and the girl were cleaning...virtually everything else. (Madoka was still outside.)

"Huu...And all we could manage for food was instant ramen," the girl said(WHAT YOU GOT AGAINST INSTANT NOODLES, WOMAN?!).

"Well, it could've gone worse..." Squall said when she finished mopping. The young girl nodded when-

"YAYAYAAGH!" Sokoto covered his face in tomato sauce and scared her.

"Omigod-" *THWACK* Wet Towel Smack. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"You were really deep in thought, so I figured..."

"A red House of Wax?! No way, no how, not even once!"

"Hey!" *THONK* Squall threw a chopstick at his head, "Stop screwing around and get the living room!"

"Agh! Just who do you think you're hitting, Grammy!" Oh, good lord...That made Squall completely forget EVERYTHING.

"'Grammy'?! Oh, that's it you little punk!" She charged at him, but he hopped over her. After that, it was a wild goose chase.

The girl cowered behind the cover of Autumn, "What's happening?!"

"Just boys being boys. Here. I'll take you back to your place."

A few minutes later...Yeah, it takes SO MUCH energy to defend and escort...

"I'm terribly sorry about that incident. I'll make sure the others are properly disciplined."

"No, it's ok. Really. I had so much fun tonight."

"Oh? Even with a boy as raucous as him?"

"You don't see anything like that nowadays. It was a much needed change of atmosphere."

"Hmm...in that case, next time you wanna set up a playdate with him, just let me know, ok?"

"Um...sure..."

"What's your name, by the way?"

"Oh? I'm Anna Koller. And you are?"

"I'm Annelise Krieger."

"You're not from around here?"

"Germany. I ran away as far as I could."

"Well, I hope you'll tell me about your exploits sometime, Annelise. Well, have a good night." She patted her head and went back to her own apartment.

"Likewise..." The girl couldn't say it loud enough for her to hear. She just looked down at her twiddling fingers and went back to her own place.

Back in her own apartment, Laura took everything off, from the face to the dress and stared at herself in the mirror. She was back in her "birthday suit", with the golden eye. She was scanning her battered body for no reason whatsoever. She just needed to double-check herself. She rubbed her forehead at the very same spot that woman patted her. She skid her hand across her golden eye and her cheeks. Then, she stared down her own hands. She still didn't believe it. Did she really fool them into think that she was somebody else? And why didn't they just give her some food? Why'd they drag her inside their home? She couldn't believe what just happened inside that apartment. All she did was ask for something to eat, and they gave her so much more.

"Heheheh...hahahahahahaha...Ahahahahahahahahaha! HAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!"

And she was rofl'ing. That was the weirdest encounter ever, and yet it provided more of the truth about this world than anything the news could offer. The male kid was completely naive! He doesn't know anything about anything! And he doesn't want to know! And the women watching over him knew about how today's society works, and yet they still chose to raise him as if he was one of their own! How crazy is that!

"Hahahahahahaaahaha...I knew it! Everything she said was all wrong!"

After a full minute of laughing in disbelief, she went and plopped herself on the bed, staring at the ceiling and cuddling one of the pillows tightly.

"Alright...tomorrow, the search continues." And with that, it was good night.


	3. Get to Know! Phantom Task

_Part 3: Get To Know! Phantom Task_

In the middle of the night...

On an abandoned alley in the middle of Austria...

A young boy was slowly limping all alone. Eyes fixed downward in a lifeless gaze. Hands gripping the lower ribs tightly. Losing breath with each step he took.

He was about to give in when he heard a muffled scream. He slid behind a building and scurried over to see what he heard.

Right there, in the middle of an intersection. Under the watchful eye of the moon...

A 10-man gang-raping in progress. They were all thrashing their flesh inside a helpless pre-teen girl.

Her eyes were closed. Nearly every orifice of her body filled to the brim with the scent of man.

He was about to interrupt their session when he heard a man's howl for mercy.

He widened his gaze and made out the now bloody chaotic scene.

She bit it off. Then she ripped the two in her hand off.

Someone pulled a gun. She pulled it off of his stained hands and shoved it in somebody's pants. Three shots fired.

Someone else pulled a knife. She pulled it off and easily slit his throat.

To the man she was sitting on, she used her legs and flipped forward to fall onto the pavement. His head cracked. Hers was not touched at all.

She kicked two in the crotch, and stole one's manhood.

One man tried to strangle her. It cost him his eyes.

She struggled to stand herself up as she wobbled forward to finish what little remained.

Two men left. One of them urged the other to punch her. He charged at her with all his might.

She grabbed his head and flipped him over. He lost his neck.

Only one man left. He tried to run away.

She shot both his legs and his crotch. He fell, writhing in agony, but still trying to get away from her, still trying to hold on for dear life.

No good. She kept on top of him and repeatedly bashed his head into the ground.

The boy was now faced with a very difficult choice to make. Save the psychopath, or save the gang-rapists.

He closed his eyes and ran forward with all his might, and he didn't bat an eyes for sight.

He elbowed the woman's neck and slammed her head into a lamppost-

"YAAAHAHAHAHAAAA!" Sokoto awoke from the harrowing nightmare and fell off the living room couch. This is the fourth night in a row he's had to withstand these terrible nightmares about his past. And each night keeps getting worse and worse. Never in his life has he sweat so much during his sleep. Not even his exploits in the desert could ever generate as much sweat in one session. "Ugh...this has got to stop..." he rubbed his forehead to try and relieve the pressure, "What's next, am I gonna haul wool to the top of a tower?..." Or endure a angry rant from an angry woman.

"Oh my GOD! Keep it down, for crap's sake!" Madoka barged out of her room to give him a talking to.

"WOOAAHAHAHAHAA!" But it only bugged him out even more. He threw a pillow at her face without thinking, "Uhh..." And only after he threw it had he realized what he'd done. When the pillow dropped, a very irritated face revealed itself, unable to restrain its temper any longer.

"That's it." She unsheathed her twin katanas and hacked and slashed away. She chased him throughout the entire apartment. She swung away so furiously, it was an absolute miracle that nothing was damaged at all. Well, she swung. The obvious damage came from Sokoto's flinging away of objects to try and slow down the demon's onslaught. Nothing worked. And only after two hours were they too exhausted to continue the chase. They stopped at his bedroom.

He was laying across the bed while she lay across the floor.

"Hah...hah...oh...my..." He was the first to break the ice, "What is wrong with you, woman?!"

"Me?!" Madoka sat up and snapped at him, "Hold on a damn minute! You're the one with all the problems! We can't enjoy a moment of silence around you! You couldn't sit still for five friggin' minutes, can ya?!"

"Of course I can't! How long you think I've been on the run for?!"

"Oh, for crying out loud, will you shut the hell up about your renegade status!"

"I ain't talking about being no renegade!" He stood up and pointed at her, "I'm talking about running since my own pappy left me at, like, birth!"

She froze at that. She simply shook her head and gave a, "...What?!"

"Yeah! Exactly!" He jumped of and shoved her out of his room, "So don't you come to me "complenin about yo demn problems wen dey don't even touch mahn by a lahng shaht"!"

"...What? Are you talking about?"

"Buh-bye!"

"Hey! I'm not done with yo-" SLAM! Oh. Oh no. Oh no no no no no no. "Di...did that just happen?" Oh, come now. Having a door slammed shut in your face is quite a common occurrence...in over-heated arguments. Oh, there goes the head casket. And you left your weapons of mass destruction in there, too.

"GET OUT HERE SO I CAN POUND THE EVER LIVING S*** OUTTA YOUR LIFELESS ASS!" Madoka kicked and punched the door. She was not gonna stop until the door broke down, allowing her inner cannibal to completely devour him. But the door was all too sturdy and didn't show a single scratch.

Mostly because Sokoto was full-body against the door, "Please tire out Please tire out Please tire out Please tire out Please tire out Please tire out Please tire out Please tire out Please tire out~~~"

Finally, the sun rose and lit up the coastline, freeing the apartment from the curse of the wailing banshee and the idiot intruder. The two of them have truly tired themselves out to fainting and sleeping for much longer than intended. They did not noticed that Autumn had already awoken from her beauty sleep and came over to check in on the two unstable bridges.

"What...happened...here..." They collapsed. Now, she'll have to rebuild them. Again. "Hey! M! Renegade! Get out here and clean this s*** up!"

Sorry. They're way too deep in their sleep. You're gonna need one heckuvan alarm to revive these guys. And, no. Tasers don't work on extremely heavy sleepers.

"*sigh..." Ok. I see how it is." She barged into the bedroom and dragged those two to the bathroom.

30 minutes later...

"zzzzzzz...uh...uhhhhhhhh...cold..." Sokoto was dreaming up an Antarctic skinny dipping party when he finally felt something tickle his thighs, "zzzz-Waa-uhhh...Um..." It took only a split second for the frost sensation to engulf his entire body and awaken his senses.

He was tied to Madoka. In a bathroom tub with nothing but ice and water. The kind of ice that gives you frostbite the instant you touch it, "WAAAAAAAAAA!"

"What? I didn't-" She finally awoke, "Oh my-Geez!"

"Look around us!"

"Look a-What happened to us?!"

"I dunno! Guh..." The chilling overcame him.

"Ahh...no...not...now..." And now she was felling it.

At that moment, Autumn strutted herself inside, "Weeelp," with her horrid Samuel L. Jackson (Capital One mode) impression, "'bout time you two finally woke up."

"Y-y-y-you d-d-did-d-d-th-th-this-s-s-s-s?!-!_!_!_" Sokoto hissed through clattering teeth.

"Yes, I did!" Autumn declared a little too proudly.

"You...will...pay...for...this..." Madoka was developing that frozen temporary stuttering problem,too!

"Not until I get some answers!" Autumn, please SHUT UP, "So! Please tell me whyyyyy! Yo apartment is an absolute mess!"

"THTHTHTHTHTHTH...Blame...thththtisssss...iiiddddiiioooottttttt..." Madoka responded.

"I can't hear you! I said, whyyy! Is yo apartment a goddaim mess!"

"It's this idddiiiiiiottststststs...ffaauullttttt..."

"Oh! Trying to pass that blehm on somebody else, AH see!" I'm going deaf...

"Ohohohoho..." Sokoto's turn, "What'sssssss withthththth that hooooorrrrrrriiidddd akkkskskskskssssseennnnttt?..." Thank you!

"You got a problem with my accent, boy?!" Well, you're white, you're a woman, you have hair, you're not from the African wilderness, OH YOU TELL ME IF ANYBODY GOT A PROBLEM!

"Dddddooonnnnn'tttttyyyooouuuudddaaaarrreeeeettttwweeeerrrprpppp..."

"Oooovvveeerrrrryyyoouurrrrrddddeeeaaadddddddbbbbbooooddddddyyyyyyyy..."

"Wow...you two need far more time alone than I thought..."

"NonononononononononoPpppppleaseWewewewewe'llllllddddddoooooaoaoaoaaaaannnnnnyththththththtiiiiiiiiiiiing!"

"Youssssssssuckkkkkkkkupchchchchchchcheesecakeccccccccrybbbbbbbaaabbbbbbby!Gggggggggrowwwwwwwwssssssssommmmmmmmmmmebbbbbbbbonnnnnnnnnesssssssswwwwwwwwwhyyyyyyyyyyyddddddddonnnnnnnnn'tttttttttttyyyyyyyyyouuuu..."

"No, no, no, don't mind me. I'll come get you after I feel like you've spent enough time reflecting over your actions. Have fun, y'all."

Door shut. Guess how long it took for them to calm down? The exact time that it took Autumn to clean everything up. UNTIL LUNCHTIME. And she took her sweet, sweet time, too!

During lunch time...thirty minutes after the recovery from "cryogenic solitary confinement"...

"Whew..." Sokoto sighed, "So, where's Squall at?"

"She had to go to the mall to check out the scene," Autumn said, "We need to make sure we're secure for our big heist."

"Heist? Are we gonna raid a big bank or something?"

"Umm...kinda-"

"*SIGH...*", Madoka rose and left, "I'll get myself another frap or something..."

"K!" Sokoto waved, "Take you time, banshee ghost lady!" *THOCK* Cellphone to head. She's gone.

"You always piss'em off like this?" Autumn asked.

"Yeah," he confessed, "Never bothered to let up. It lets me see who's really worth keeping close."

"Really?" And here comes the lunchtime conversation, "People like us?"

"Yeah, I suppose you could say so."

"Even thought we're not what you think we seem like?"

"HAH?"

"Well, first, lemme ask you," Uh, yeah. How are you supposed to explain it to a guy like him? "When you heard the words, "Phantom Task", what were you thinking?"

"Huh...phantom...like the unseen shadows of the night, striking terror in unsuspecting people..."

"Uh...well, you're not far off."

"Whaddayamean?"

"Well..." And she pulled up a chair right beside him and told him everything she knew, "When I was around 16, I was wandering around the streets like a lost hobo. I wasn't too well off, family or work-wise. Been raped countless times, and one of those times I snapped."

"Snapped how?"

"Oh...I tore their penises off..."

"Really? That's all you did?" was what he said, but in reality, he was thinking, 'That's exactly how my nightmare played out! What's this all supposed to mean, though?'

"That's all I remember doing," she responded, "Next thing, I remember, I got an invitation from Squall to meet her at the local cafe joint down the street. We talked about some s***, and next thing I know, I wanted to join Phantom Task."

"Oh, almost like how you harassed me into doing whatever girl-bands you wanted me to groupie for?"

"Heheheh...no. You're way outta your own league for this one, kiddo."

"Hey! Not on my level, you don't!"

"Why would I wanna devolve myself?!"

"I dunno! You brought it up!"

"Oh, sit down! Just let me finish my story, why don't you!"

"Story? You just told me random events!"

"Yeah...I'll admit. They don't tell us a whole lot about Phantom Task. A lot of it's confidential. But from what I know, it's a worldwide, underground terrorist organization. We were able to stay undetected because...well, nobody would dare tell anyone that they lost their precious IS units to us. Whenever we bothered to steal some, anyway."

"Seriously? Why don't they just tell them that something's up and get them to reel you guys in already?"

"Because if they did that, the other countries would-well, they'd sent some elite Covert Ops units after us, but everyone else would be after their asses first."

"What? Is the IS that valuable?"

"At this point, it's got more worth than money itself, and I dunno where the hell that came from."

"How does that even work?!"

"No idea. But that's where we tried to disrupt everything. Just taking away IS's and dropping them at our members' front doors."

"Really? That's all there is to it?"

"For a long time, yeah. We used to be just a random terrorist group. We were just attacking random facilities that have IS units to strike terror and fear into the public eye. Now, we just...we're just three random people with almost nowhere to live."

"Nowhere to live? Well, you live here, don'tcha?"

"Hahahah...Well, you could say we're nomadic, always moving from place to place with no reason whatsoever."

"Must be an interesting life, huh?"

"Kinda...but I do long for the days where we could charge into any headquarters we wanted and just wreck s*** up..."

"Heheheh...oh, that would be living the dream for me..."

"Really? Do tell me more..." And they blabbed on through the afternoon, Sokoto talking about his 13 years of just not giving a single damn and Autumn telling him about her own struggles before and after joining Phantom Task. An hour later, they shared a laugh and a drink (she had sake, he had soda). And then, a few minutes of silence, sitting on the balcony overlooking the entire afternoon coastline. Then, Autumn looked down at her hands and broke the silence,

"I was hoping I'd wait till tonight to tell you," she said solemnly, "but..."

"But, what? What's up?"

"I'll just come out and say it...We have a plan to reclaim the Silver Streamline."

"*PBBTT!*" He spat everything out in disbelief, "You have a WHAT?!"

"You heard me," she said smugly, "We're gonna get your best friend back."

"Really?!" exciteeeeed! "So, we'll be able to fly again?!"

"Yeah, but there's a catch...We all have to have an IS unit of our own. So..." she took out a calendar and laid out the specifics, "We've divided this into multiple phases to avoid detection; the first phase will require each of us to obtain an IS unit from somewhere remote."

"Meaning we're gonna have to move?"

"No. We'll do this first phase in four separate missions, each in pairs. Each mission, we'll send one person to accompany the person whom we're getting the IS for and taxi them over close enough to the location for them to walk on over, but far enough to avoid suspicions from the surrounding eyes. The other two will stay behind to hold down the fort just in case something happens back at home."

"Oh, and that way, you'll still have a connection away and here. So, y'all have a schedule planned out?"

"Actually, yeah. Since you and that little girl seem to be hitting it off so well-"

"Eww gross do not call it that."

"-Hah! Well, we've decided that you'll be going last."

"WHAT?! Why?!"

"Did you not just hear me..." she said playfully, "That Annalise girl really seems to like you."

"Oh, good lord..." he threw his arms in the air.

"Don't worry!" she wagged her hand, "We're not gonna leave y'all alone to get your asses kicked too easily."

"Why's that?"

"Like I said, we need two people to stay home each time we go out on a raid. Those two will be paired with each other in and out of the apartment."

"Are the assigned pairs permanent?"

"More or less."

"So, who's with whom?"

"The pairs are me and Squall, and you and M."

"Hold...hold on...who's babysitting...huh?"

"Hey, you asked for it. Your brains are way too overheated, and you know me and Squall very well, so..." She grabbed him and squeezed his head between her breasts (no, not squeeze, CHOKED HIM!) and used her creepy sing-song voice, "...am I correct in assuming that you'll get along with M as well? I think you know what'll happen if you don't."

"Ok! Ok! I'll play nice! I'll play nice!" he tried so hard to get those words through her body and out to her ears, but she probably didn't hear him at all, "Just get me out of this suffocation death trap! Please! Anybody! SAVE ME! HELP!"

"Come on...you expect me to believe you so easily after that spectacle earlier?" She put her mouth to his head, and used her teeth to rip off some of his hair.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Whew...thank God no one can hear that scream, even though they're outside!

"Hey," Madoka snuck up behind them, "Stop molesting him and get rid of that pipsqueak over there."

"Ooohohohohoo!" He used that instant of distraction to flee back to his bedroom.

"Are you f****** serious?" And she turned to face his molester, "Do you even know what the hell he's capable of?" Oh, what? The kind of mayhem that makes you want to tear your hair off of the kind of mayhem that makes THEM want to fry his skin off?

"Yeah. That's exactly why I let him in on our whole plot."

"What? No, that's not what I'm concerned about!"

"Wow...who gave you the role of "big sister", huh?"

"Ok I'm going out!" Sokoto ran out in his disguise to meet with Annalise.

"Wha-now?!" Autumn realized what just happened and tried to stop him.

"Don't worry! I'll be home for dinnertime! See you soon!"

Madoka tried to chase after him, "Get back here, you lousy-" *SLAM!* Too late. He slammed the door just in time for her to ram her face into it. She slid to the ground and laid there like putty before invoking her inner rage, "I'M GONNA KILL THAT CRUD-INFESTED HOG-HUMPING D***HEAD IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO!"

"Shall I freeze your brain once more, M?" Autumn questioned silently.

Thankfully, he came home just in time for dinner. Because the chaos he ensued that day was, in regular terms, mild, but in woman's terms...

"...absolutely horrendous!" interviewee on NHK News 7 of all channels, "I cannot believe that he would such a thing! He has to be holding that little girl hostage! Oh, what she must be thinking, that poor little~~~"

Squall sat back and sipped her wine glass, Autumn resisted the urge to burst into laughter, and Madoka snapped her metal fork in half.

"Why...just...why..."

"See?" Squall said, "We don't have to do anything. We just need him to be our little scapegoat-"

Autumn burst into laughing.

"Could you not, Miss Bi-pole?" Madoka growled.

"I-I-I can't-It's just-PPBBBBTTTTTHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!" As if the boy's actions didn't spark any ridiculous backlash, the news report is using all manners of "polite foul language" to denounce these actions. As what, who the hell cares?!

Someone knocked on the door.

"I'll get it," Squall got up, leaving Autumn to wallow in her own ha-ha's and Madoka to wallow in...whatever you call that.

And she opened the door to two children laughing to the time of their lives.

"You should've been there, Squall!" Sokoto said with a bright grin, "We were just everywhere, ripping off women's clothing!"

"I tried to stop him," Annalise said through her laughter, "but I ended up wearing aaaaHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!"

And now he's laughing too, "She wore a bra on her head!...and a 25,000-yen dress on her back!...and...and she...she just-"

And she posed in a Superman stance, "I AM SUPERWOMAAAAAAN!" And they both fell to the ground laughing.

"Ok, bumble-ball," Squall said while dragging them both in for dinner, "Why don't y'all cool off in the kids' section of the dinner table?..."

After dinner, Sokoto and Annalise hugged and parted ways. Around bedtime...

The four members of Phantom Task gathered round a single candle light in the middle of the dark living room. And for some reason, everyone decided to use an ominous tone of voice.

Squall: "So, Autumn...how much did you tell him?"

Autumn: "Just the basics...we're gonna tell him the rest of it now."

Sokoto: "Tell me...what, exactly?"

Autumn: "We know how deeply attached you are to your IS unit. So, I thought it'd be fair to let you know what you're going to be retrieving so that you can plan for it."

Sokoto: "That's fair enough...so, what...or, WHO is my target?..."

Autumn: "M. The blueprints."

Madoka: "Right...Here. On our final raid, you and I are going to break into the Shibuya Tower of Advanced Technologies, where they're experimenting on this unit."

Sokoto: "Whoa...weird hologram-wait...those wings...they kinda..."

Madoka: "Yes...until we get the Silver Streamline back, and if we're successful in this raid, you will be piloting the Streamline's descendant."

Sokoto: "Hold on...I'M GOING AFTER WHAT?!"

Squall: "The Silver Gospel. 3rd Generation IS co-developed by US and Israeli R&D teams, led by Michelle Grainer and Adiela Tiefental, who copied the core contained within the Silver Streamline particle for particle, then transferred it over to the Gospel."

Madoka: "In other words..."

Autumn: "Silvia's younger sister."

Sokoto: "No way...And they're experimenting on her? I gotta go rescue someone's sister?"

Autumn: "Why do you look at IS's as people, anyway?..."

Squall: "Because it kinda looks like a person?"

Madoka: "It's fine. We'll retrieve it last. For now, you'll be our decoy guy when we're breaking into a vault."

Sokoto: "*sigh...* Why do I have the strangest feeling you're gonna enjoy that part?"

Squall: "Well, M might."

Madoka: "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Autumn: "Though I am glad that they removed all the gold and yellow. So uneasy on the eyes."

Madoka: "You better behave yourself, renegade..."

Sokoto: "B****! Do you know how I got the name renegade?!"

Madoka: "I WILL PERSONALLY RIP YOUR HEART OUTTA YOUR ASS AND STUFF IT BACK DOWN YOUR THROAT!"

Autumn and Squall: "RESTRAIN~~~"

Fukuyama Sokoto...one of the few people that can turn psychopathic behavior into pure slapstick comedy...

Meanwhile, in "Annalise's" apartment...

"Whew...that was so much fun!" Laura said after taking off her disguise and taking a shower, "Almost like a reckless little chihuahua! So feisty and so daring!" She was laying in her bed thinking about everything that happened today. All she did was spend an hour talking to him about his morals, adventures, what his future plans are, and what he believes to be his dream come true. Odd, awkward, and completely unnecessary responses aside, they all amounted to two things:

his personality profile belongs to that of an activist, but his behavior belonged to that of a no-nonsense, naive little child.

Sort of like...

"Hmm..." she began to think, "It is probably just a hunch...I do not want to believe it, but..." She sat up and cuddled the stuffed panda he won for her, "I will have to check once more for absolute confirmation. In the meantime, I must flag down a response team."

She readied her homing signal chips and hearing bugs for tomorrow.


	4. The Source of the Strain

_Part 4: The Source of the Strain_

"Nothing here, either?" Chifuyu muttered, "But everything's pointing to the Kanto region..." It's been a full week since she and Maya set off on their mission. After countless interviews with other witnesses and suspects, she's gotten no conclusive evidence that the renegade is among them. Just protesters being protesters and police being police. Although there have been reports of people exhibiting unusual behavior since the renegade's assault on the IS Academy. People rising up with masculinist posters and female everybody's trying to dismiss the incident as just another irrational occurrence in today's society. Which wouldn't surprise her at all considering everything they just said during her encounters with them, completely disregarding the world's only two male pilots, one of which has saved Japan twice! And here comes the other one to screw everything up!

Is this retribution, or what? Well, there's no time to dwell on this yet.

"Ok...one more ought-a get me somewhere..." she grabbed her gear and got ready to go. Then she opened her private channel to Yamada, "Maya, I'm going to the Kanto region. Gather as much info on people the renegade's been in contact with." Then, she saw a taxi bound for Tokyo, "Taxi! Take me to the Tokyo Tower!"

"Do you know how far that is, woman?!" the male taxi driver-OH COME ON!

"I don't care, jack-hole," she said as she slammed her bags down and shut the door, "Just drive."

Yeah, he got no choice. He is being watched via secret camera mirror, after all. On the way over, she called Mako (Maya) over her, "Hello? Mako?"

"Ah! Yes, ma'am."

"I'm going to Kanto to dig up info on the renegade. Come down to Kyoto in Kansai and find out more about why the riots are targeted only towards the higher ups."

"Only? I'm finding riots everywhere, and they're targeted towards the media for victimizing all males in general. It's especially bad for the minors, and even worse for the few females who've taken a liking to their desired male mate."

"I see. Just get down to Kansai region and try to clear up the situation..."

"On my way." She hung up and shover her phone into her bag.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself," the taxi driver scorned.

"Well, yeah. I mean, what'd you expect?" she griped, "The world's gone bonkers so hard, it's just ripe for the riffing. And when you look at it for the neutral perspective, it makes even less sense than Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo. How the f*** is that even possible?!"

"It's that damn Infinite Stratos!" Let the riffing begin, dude! "If I could just wring my hands around that feeble throat of whoever made that thing-"

"HAH! Get in line, pal! The whole world's still looking for that person!"

"Don't get snippy at me! I'll deal with any other flesh-cheating b**** I see coming up to my house and chucking eggs at my doorway!"

"Eggs? Really? What kind of world do they live in?..." And they chatted throughout the entire trip. An hour later...

"Ok. Tokyo Tower," the driver said while resetting the ticker, "That's 50,000 yen, lady."

Chifuyu grabber her gear and left, but not before dropping a stack of 100,000 yen on the seat, "Here. Enough to shut you up, I hope..." She slammed the door and left him there to wonder what just happened and drive off like nothing happened.

There was a massive demonstration near the Tokyo Prince Hotel. Apparently, the prefectural government has decided to sign on a male official to the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly as its only independent, the group said to have the least amount of influential power in today's political world. And even that garnered some influence. "Influence" as in, some 20,000 women want him out and in their claws (hands with nails)! Chifuyu slowly approached the demonstration to get a better sense of the emotions the people are feeling. That, or she needed some space away from the tension of the outskirts of the streets because there were women who couldn't fit themselves into the hotel grounds, so they waited outside for their prayers to be answered. Prayers in the form of unrelenting, haunting gazes that have soul-piercing capabilities, arms folded, minds in a no-touch state of survival. She'd love to wrangle some answers out of those poles, but she found an easier solution: singling out a group of young teenage girls to get a warped perspective of the human male. She found one such group and ran to the hotel fountain.

"Hey, you!" she called, "Woman with the glasses!"

One of the girls snapped back, "What do you want?"

Chifuyu ran up to the girls and caught her breath, "Excuse me, where are my manners. I'm Mashitame Negata of NHK World 6. Would you mind if I interviewed you about the current riots of the-"

"Oh my god, yes! Please!" She's so delighted to find a reporter in person who shares in her beliefs (as if there weren't enough)! "I have so much to say about them! Here, I'll grab my friends and we can do a group interview!" She ran off to gather her clique, "Hey, girls! Get over here!"

"Where was all that enthusiasm earlier?..." Hey, whatever works to make them give you the works, am I right?

Within moments, a crowd of 20 friends gathered round her, eager to manipulate any kind of question she has into a direct attack on the "insert and gender-based insults now". Luckily, she only used a camcorder and microphone, otherwise this would've been very difficult.

"Ok, let's get started with the basics," she asked away, "What do y'all know about the riots which literally came out of nowhere?"

"Lemme tell you why they're "rioting", ok?" one of the girls butted in, "They think that they can just strut their filthy stuff all over us just because some random male pumped his pistols and broke house out of an abandoned compound! "For, what?" you ask? A goddamn moment of fame and a dip in the fountain of womanly youth! That's all they care about!"

"Whoa, hey! Ease up!" Chifuyu laid herself back and stopped them for a moment, "I've heard of molestation and corruption, but come on! Don't tell me Freud was an absolute monkey, too!"

"Yes he is, and we've got the proof!" One student ran up to the camera, "Right here in Tokyo University, we have conclusive evidence that Freud reversed the actual theory of p**** envy! No wonder why penis-wielders ogle us like monkeys! They've been doing that for, what? Centuries? Millenia? Only staring at our breasts and behinds like it ain't no thing?"

"Well, yeah," Chifuyu said, "but you coulda just shove those things into his things and call it molestation. Easy cup of tea as they get locked up."

"The thing is, though...they're very cunning. You can try that on them, and they'll find a way to make you one of their slaves. That's how I lost my sister two weeks ago! That's how you'll lose the ones that really matter!"

"Well, is that how they got a male delegate?..." Chifuyu "embarrassingly" popped that big question of the hour.

And they wasted fifteen minutes on the subject, delving further into women's privilege, vengeful tastes of medicine decades in the making, and anything else they can use to make the male look as degenerate as fast-food chains.

And then, FINALLY, the last question...

"Well, let's end it with the obvious yet powerful note: what message do you have for the rioters and for the man-animal they call "The Renegade"?" Oh, geez-us. Really? This is a female-dominated world. What message do you think they have?

"Piss off and crawl back under your hole!"

"It's our time to shine now, scumbags!"

"Paging God! It's the GODDESS! She wants her gender privilege back!"

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, et-f******-cetera.

After covering the rest of the protest for a whopping hour...

She was resting her exhausted brain in a grass field under a freeway, "Ughhhhhh...how do these girls even get the notion...Hmm?" Suddenly, her phone rang a tone familiar to action mech-movies. She waited a few seconds to confirm the ringtone before deciding to contact someone from the Academy grounds, "Hey, Cecilia. I'm getting a signal from an apartment complex near the waterfront."

"I read the signal as well," Cecilia responded, "It's coming in on XC003-5902."

"That's!..." She knows that channel...that's the Schwarzer Regen's terminal on the IS Academy! "I need somebody to go and back her up!"

"Who? An IS Pilot?"

"Yes! Laura's found the renegade!"

"!" A gasp of breath confused for static.

"Hello? Cecilia?" She didn't get any response for half a minute before...

"Oh, don't worry. I'll be sure to deal with him very painfully." So declares the unseen menace on the other side.

"Not yet. We need a swift capture and transport. Laura's soldiers are still here. They'll help you with containment. Just get him to the rendezvous point."

Yes, you'd better hurry. Because the renegade is wreaking havoc...

...in a dumpster between two buildings.

"What's wrong, Annalise?" he asked.

"I..." Anna was extremely blushed, "I don't think that this is such a good idea..."

"Oh, relax! We'll just hit up the graffiti boards and spray some females steaming mad! Look, no one's around to see for a few minutes."

"But-but in an alley?! Won't they get the wrong idea?!" Well, actually, no one will get any idea, seeing as how they're somewhere where no one can see it.

"Oh, come on!" he encouraged, "What happened to all that enthusiasm from when we raided the women's clothing store?"

"Well, that was fun..." she muttered before returning to her nervous wreck, "but-but-but this is completely different! This is vandalism on an extreme degree!"

"It's just spray painting," he joked before commenting on her sudden hesitation," Say, what's with you? You were all gung-ho over messing with clothes and undies. Now, you're backing down from a little spraying. What's up?"

"Ah...Well, I've never defiled my own gender in a most...unusual way before..."

"Oh...ok. Well, just head on back to the-whoa." A very resonant, very loud uproar near the hotel area, "What the heck?..."

"Is it a demonstration?..."

"Maybe...Oh! Go with the crowd! Then, you can head on home when you've had enough excitement!"

"Sure! Thank you, Takumi!"

"No prob! Oy...I dunno what's on that girl's mind. I mean, yesterday, she was the first to invade someone's "boobular area", and now?...Eh. Something's up, but not now. Let's vandalize some random woman's emotional sensors!"

And with that, Annalise (Laura Bodewig) ran off towards the protest to find clearing. She had to alert her ground forces and the pilots back on the island that the renegade was in this vicinity. But they won't be able to find the renegade unless she can activate her signal in an open-

"Ack!" Person bump! "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Hey! You bumped into-"

They quickly recognized each other.

"Oh! Oh, it's you!"

"Oh...Hey, you're the waitress from the cafe!"

The waitress rushed to hug her, "Oh my gosh! It's so nice to see you again!"

"Likewise!" Anna let go and looked up at her, "What are you doing here?"

"There we go," Sokoto finished spray-painting a very crude depiction of a female Hitler satirized to the extreme degree, "Now I just have to-"

Suddenly, he felt a chill down his spine. This doesn't affect him unless he knows something bad will happen within a few moments. He shifted his head slightly to the right and fixed his eyes on the open field to see what gave him the tingles.

There she was. The woman with blue hair cut into an angled bob. The woman he referred to as...

"...pagan woman..." he rasped under his breath.

She jolted her head as if she heard somebody backtalk her and turned towards the alley. He slipped behind a dumpster just before she could notice him. She stared blankly for a few seconds before turning her attention to the shopping center right across from the hotel. He sighed a huge sigh of relief, then regained his frantic composure as he quickly reached for his cellphone and dialed... "Hello? Autumn? You there?"

"Yeah," she responded in a quiet voice, "What's up?"

"Ah, I don't mean to interrupt your raid, buuuuuuuut..." Whisper shout. You whisper, but you force the air out, "PAGAN WOMAN IS SETTING UP A RITUAL SITE RIGHT NOW!"

"Pagan...what?"

"Y'know! One of those IS Pilots that tried to do me in!"

"IS..." She paused for a second, before going to her sinister confidence voice, "Oh, don't worry. We're on it. You just keep a close eye on Annalise."

"Anna?" He turned his eyes to her, "Why?"

"I think she's working with pagan woman."

"HUH?!"

"Yeah, she left a tracking device, and a bug a couple days ago. Found out right when we left." A couple of days ago? Wait-how did he and Madoka not pick up on that?!

"Then...she's..." Yes, dude. She's one of them.

"If you're gonna have a fight, keep it away from public eyes until we get there," Autumn made sure that he got the message.

"Got it," he hung up and jammed his phone into his shoe before making a mad dash away from the riot site. But right when he turned into the main street, he bumped into a woman with too many bags in her forearms and caused a huge spill.

"Oh my-Watch where you're-" he stopped mid sentence, "Agh! Madoka?"

She blinked at him before knocking a can of beans into his head, "Oh, piss off..." She quickly regathered her groceries and left him stranded in a sea of leering faces and angry taunts.

"Yeah, that's what I thought-" he was about to insult the general public when he noticed her leaving, "Hey! Whaddaya doin'?"

"Just go play around the sandbox or something!"

"Fine!" he stuck his tongue out at her and turned his attention to the crowd of angry women, "Ok! Who wants to tango with the knight of womanly nightmares?!"

Madoka recollected herself at a street market several blocks away from the male nuisance, "Ugh...if I have to babysit him during a raid, I'm gonna-" Her phone suddenly rang. She dropped her bags and answered, with very apparent vexation, "This better be good."

"Hi, M," it was Squall in her usual contempt, "How are things back at home?"

"Psh..." Well, she's not enjoying this interruption either! "Did you get the thing yet?"

"We're close, but we've run into a problem..."

"Uuuggghhh..." Oh, shut up, woman! You have no right to complain! "What could it be this time, I wonder..."

Squall's tone of voice suddenly shifted to dead-serious, "Someone followed the renegade."

"Huh?"

"A member of the Schwarzer Hase, Clarissa Harfouch, is among us."

"!" Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped.

But Squall kept talking, "And I think Laura Bodewig is close behind. She must've sent one of her own to tail the renegade all the way out here, and her army is still scouting the area. It won't be long before the swarm attacks our hive. Find him, get him out, and bring him to the rendezvous point in the text."

BEEP!

Lost connection. And that's that. Madoka stared down at the blank space in between her feet. No one could see her eyes because...they lost all life. Her brain was running through multiple scenarios and escape plans to try and survive another day. No matter what she thought of, they all carried at minimum a high risk of detection from an unwanted party. Everything that Phantom Task had worked for now hangs in the balance of one bratty little dude...

"Sokoto..."

...who left a trail of fallen, hot-headed female pedestrians. "No...Sokoto!" She dropped everything she had and ran after him, hoping that no one else had the same idea.

Just as he was running to find to protest site, "Ok, where'd Annalise get off to?..." He sprinted across the street until he neared the Hotel, where he saw her talking to a waitress.

"Yo, Anna!" He waved while approaching her, "Gotta talk to you!"

"Oh, Taku!" She noticed, "What are you-"

She was shoved over by the waitress, who walked towards him with extreme disdain. She readied her hand and tried to slap him across the mouth, but he immediately caught it, forcing her to retract her hand and wipe it clean on the ground, removing all of those man germs.

"Ugh, why the hell are you here?" she exclaimed.

"Relax. I just need to talk to-"

"You don't talk to anyone unless you beg for mercy, you pig!" she yelled right in his face, but was tugged from behind.

"Can you calm down for a second?" Anna tried to ease her temper, but the waitress was too caught up in her own emotions to allow any dissuading.

"It's ok!" she hugger Anna tightly to protect her, "I can deal with this ogle-bogger!"

"Ogle-wuh?..." Yep. My sentiments, exactly.

"No!" Anna freed herself and faced the waitress with pleading eyes, "Just let me go with him!"

"Huh?"

"He's not one of them, ok? He's a good man. Just please let me take him out of here, and you'll never have to see him again!"

"What?" She grabbed her hand to prevent her from going with him, "Well, I'd appreciate it, but why the hell would you wanna-"

"Please...he's not a bad person. At all." They stared each other down for a half-minute, the waitress's scornful eyes being influenced by Anna's innocent, longing eyes. Finally, the waitress was overcome a bit and decided to give in.

"Fine..." She released Annalise's hand and watch her run to the boy. But she wasn't about to let him do as she wanted, as she immediately stormed towards him, pointed her finger between his eyes and angrily declared, "If you even look at her, you'll be hearing from my mother."

Upon hearing that threat, something snapped inside of Anna (Laura) and forced her to glare directly into the waitress's eyes, "And if I force him to make a move on me?!"

The waitress pulled back, appalled at what she just heard, "Wha...you wouldn't!"

"Just you watch, lady!" And she grabbed Soki's arm and swung his hand to her behind to show her and everyone nearby that she meant business, "Ok, Soki. Let's be off." And she dragged him away from the hotel, leaving the waitress in complete shock.

Unbeknownst to anyone, however, she squeezed her choker, which had a tracking device to alert her allies of her location. All she has to do was take him somewhere secluded, where no one will miss him if he's gone, "So, do you want to go to the Tokyo Tower?"

"Yeah," Sokoto said, "but there's a park on the way over there. You wanna check the scene out from there?"

"Why not?" She agreed and diverted route. She noticed several of her ground soldiers disguised as bystanders already in position. Everything was going smoothly. All she had to do was send the signal once more to begin containment.

After a minute of weaving through dirty looks exchanged by the onlookers and the duo themselves, the finally arrived at Shiba Park. And somehow, they ended up at the pagoda overlooking the multitude of Sakura breezeways.

"There's nobody here..." Anna commented.

"Yeah..." Sokoto stretched his legs and plopped down on a patch of flowers, "Nice little spot for us to waste our time, seeing as how I'll have to go away."

Anna turned around, "What do you mean?"

"Tomorrow, I'm heading out to somewhere more peaceful," he said while staring up at the clouds, "Away from the chaos of the city."

"But why?"

"Dunno," he said in a monotone, "My sister just upped and said it."

"Oh...well, I have to go as well," she responded. She was slowly backing away from him to give herself room to rally her troops.

"You think we'll ever sit down and get to know each other better?" he asked while gently tracing the clouds with his finger, "Y'know, away from the helter-skelter of the you-know-what?"

"Actually, I'm not sure that's a good idea..."

"Come on! You can tell me! It'll be ok!"

"No, it's just that...I'm not who you think I am."

"Yeah. I kinda figured that out already..." Pause for effect, then vehemently whisper just loud enough for her to hear, "PAGAN WITCH."

At that moment, every single one of her nerves snapped. She was now lost in blind rage.

"I...AM NOT...A PAAAAGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" She immediately deployed her Schwarzer Regen.


	5. Can We Flip Out, Now?

_Part 5: Can we flip out now?..._

"This is why I hate women. They never know when to shut up..."

That's something that was burned into Madoka's heart ever since she was escaped her near-brutal raping. Yes, those words were spoken by a man. No, they weren't from her dead captors. They were from her savior. A savior whose beautiful blonde hair had been hand-torn into a disgusting yellow calamity. But why does she remember these words? Is it because she has heard them constantly from her father? Or is it from her savior, who never once said a word while delivering judgement on the men who were constantly talking their lives away to an inevitable death? Whatever the reason, she could not bring herself to lift her head and gaze into neither his nor anyone's battle scars ever again. But her soul was moved far enough to muster up the courage to defy his words just once,

"Will I see you again?"

Nothing. Not even silence. All the answers the world around her was willing to give was a very harsh ultimatum,

"If everything goes according to plan, no."

And that was the end of it. She would go on to struggle against the oppressors in secrecy, whilst he would become the center of attention, diverting all victimizers and criminals to target him instead of her. Light and dark, forever separated by the temporal tides, always to protect each other, but never to see each other again.

Or, at least...it was supposed to be that way.

Only after eight long years did Madoka complete this first puzzle. That tattered hair...the demeanor spoken to all bad people, regardless of gender...

"Dammit...I saw that bastard again..." She breathed heavily while scrambling to find him, "That bastard's the renegade! That can only mean-"

That the "plan" fell apart well before he resurfaced. He tested her, and she failed. (Somehow.) Now, he gave her another chance, but something happened to call his attention and intervene. At least that's what she believes. (He can't remember crucial details for s***!) She continued her frantic belief test while searching for the man that would be until-

*BOOM!*

"YOOOHOHOHOHOHO~"

-Until she saw him fly across the street, tailed by the Schwarzer Regen.

"We're in deeper s*** than five years ago..." she quickly rasped before darting after them.

There was no possible way to keep this mission a secret with him running loose like this. He knows nothing about restraint, only which buttons to push to set his opponents over the edge, giving off the impression that his they are the demented maniacs, when in reality, there's no one who could act more demented on purpose than he could. And that's if he's trying; help the time, he's just plain immature! But even that could fool the onlookers who are witnessing this game of hide-and-kill.

"Yagh...uhh..." Sokoto is struggling to keep his body intact. It's an absolute wonder that "PAGAN WITCH" only used her mechanized fists throughout this venture. Each blow he was dealt sent him rocketing towards another structure or vehicle. Till at last, he was catapulted for a seventh time, this time into the hotel. He crashed through a window and into the closing ceremony of the delegate's induction, where he was greeted by a sharp pain in his side and a ghastly gasp from the crowd of politicians.

"Uh..." he stammered, "Howdy do? Friends?..."

"Madame!" The representative-elect shouted, "It's the renegade!"

"Get everyone to safety!" The governor responded before deploying her own IS, "I'll deal with this vermin myself!"

"Heh," Sokoto laughed, "Funny thing about that-" He timed his finger-pointing to the exact moment when Anna, now fully recognized as Laura, crashed through the walls and smacked into the governor. The newly-elect were still trying to keep as many people as possible away from the ensuing scuffle, inadvertently clearing a pathway for Sokoto to escape.

He ran as fast as he could, trying to gain some distance between him and Laura. He could wait for her to launch her Ignition Boost to charge at him, but not only would that cause considerable collateral damage, the instant he tries to jump-kick her when she'd least expected, she would've already had her barrier at the ready, freezing him the moment he came within proximity. he just had to run, bob and weave.

He turned at every corner, jumped into every room, used every shortcut he found, hoping to confuse her sense of direction long enough for him to get out in the open.

"Don't you turn your back on me!" Laura let loose her wired daggers, marking his trail as they closed in on him with incredible speed. he doesn't have much time now. It was either stay and fight, or run and delay. He kept looking behind him to see where the daggers were going to him him next, and sidestepped and flipped accordingly to dodge the dangers and position himself for the next obstacle ahead. This continued for half a minute. Because as soon as he saw the exit...

"Surprise, m***********!" the governor popped up from the hallway next to the door and charged him. He braced himself for impact. But as she threw her leg to kick him, he slid his knees across the floor and got as low as possible to avoid the attack. He then recovered just in time to escape the hotel...

...only to see the place surrounded by armed soldiers and bellowing bystanders.

"Huh..." he muttered to himself, "Now, where have I seen this before..."

"Attention, renegade!" Clarissa called over the microphone, "We are giving you one last chance to surrender and return to the IS Academy! Put your hands over your head and come forward slowly!"

Well, he could allow himself to be captured AGAIN, or he could drag this on until a window of opportunity lets in the fresh air. By that, I mean-

"And what if I refuse, PAGAN WOMAN?!" -yeah...I think you get it now.

"Rrgh..." Clarissa dropped her microphone before communicating to all soldiers surrounding the premises, "Fine...BRING HIM TO ME IN PIECES!"

The soldiers charged and fired at him. He hopped up, grabbed the ledge, flipped himself over, and kicked the wall back hard enough to get him into another hallway and out of the bullets' wrath.

"Ok. Those bucket heads are coming...now, what to do about-" *BOOM!* "THE!" A dagger narrowly missed him, but it was enough to fell him. "AGH! Uhh..." The impact was harsher this time around. He recoiled and steadied himself, only to meet two angry metal robot costumes come rushing at him like an angry mob without pitchforks or torches. One of them has a barrier that's only good for one target; the other is a standard close-quarter-combat model. The solution came to him when Laura finally loosed her barrier. He jumped right when the governor was about to cup him in her grasp and twisted his body to leer right into both their eyes with a condescending gaze. More than enough for the governor to IB towards him at full speed, which was just enough to interrupt Laura's targeting.

The governor was frozen. Laura narrowly avoided collision. Sokoto ran away, finally breathing a sigh of relief. But it didn't last very long as Laura kicked her "partner" into the wall and roped him back in her clutches.

"AGH!" He was pinned under her cold, metal feet.

"This is the last time you will refer to anyone as "pagan"," Laura hissed.

This was it for him. No way out this time. He was escorted towards the entrance, where they were interrupted by the governor breaking back into the hotel, mad.

"That...THING...is mine," she declared.

"Actually, under the First Article of Section 17 of the Alaska Treaty," Laura stately explained, "this belongs to me."

"You will have no jurisdiction over our fugitive!"

"If he comes into contact with Infinite Stratos anything, we have total jurisdiction without contest."

"I...am...ordering you...TO SURRENDER THAT MAN-" she was about to strike when Laura froze her in her place. Just in time for her soldiers to storm the interior and completely poke their guns at the renegade!

"You lot! Stay away from my target-" the governor screamed, before one of the soldiers forcefully "Removed" her IS. Yet, she still remained in suspended animation, without being paid any mind to.

"Secure the renegade for transport and experimentation," she ignored the governor's ramblings and continued with the operation.

"You! Give me back my IS!"

"And arrest her for interference and aggravated assault," she finally loosed her barrier only for the governor to drop into handcuffs at gunpoint.

"You...you'll hear from my lawyers..." she let out a harrowing grunt, which Laura took for a feather slap across a rocky cheek.

"Hah! And you'll hear from the winner of the First Mondo Grosso, as well as a heavyweight on IS-related affairs."

"UGH..." Instant defeat. She had no choice but to allow two burly men to drag her away. She bowed her head in defeat, but secretly vowed vengeance. In the form of corrupted politics, I'm sure. Uncreative drag queen.

And Sokoto was out as well. Trapped within the wires of the Schwarzer Regen, carried across the park to the transport vehicles like a circus parade whose main showcase lie trapped in a cage. He was raised up high for all to see: an army of weaponized soldiers humiliating a prisoner of war for all the spectators to see. And they all let loose a raucous roar of dissent. They yelled for the IS pilot to squeeze the life out of him, for all the soldiers to shoot him, for anyone to put an end to his pathetic existence.

And yet, all he could focus his energy on was containing his laughter. In his moments of impending doom, he found hilarity in the people who got what they wanted, and yet still demanded more. All those incoherent screams and angry faces showing more wrinkles than necessary were met with widened eyes and a restrained grin. The governor, however, was not pleased. She felt as though her livelihood had just been robbed by the people whom she was trying to appease all her life. She looked up in disgust and read the minds of the vast majority of her audience through their facial expressions. And looking at them right now, most would say she just lost half her supporters due to the outburst of the renegade. Then man that she was supposed to subdue, not this silver-freaked upstart. And a very few used that logic to call for her immediate execution as well.

At last, they were tied together and thrown in an armored transport van.

"Yow! Oof!" Sokoto landed face-first, "Get offa me, Ol' Stinky and Wrinkly!"

"Why do I have to be bound to this creep?!" the governor yelled at her captors.

"So you can take your sweet time getting along with each other," Clarissa mocked.

"Oy vey..." Sokoto muttered.

"I will not apologize to this wretch for anything!" the governor yelled back.

"Good," Clarissa responded, "then we can drug him and force him to kill you."

"What?! No! You can't do this!" her screams yielded no change. The soldiers just slammed the doors shut, ignoring her constant pleads, "Let me go! You can't do this to me! Nooooooooo!"

"Get over it, already," Sokoto butted in, "We're done for, and they ain't gonna let us breathe fresh air anytime soon."

"Argh-Shut up!" the governor tried to ram his head into the wall, but he ducked in time to flip her face-down to the floor.

"Why don't you cool your face off for a while?!" he snapped.

"Get off off me-"

"Nope!"

"AGH! OWOWOWOWOWOW!"

"You settled down yet?!"

*SLAM!*

"UGH...uhh..."

"God damn, FINALLY!"

"Ugh...what the hell? I was this close to securing my position as the forerunner of female dominance...I was about to taste ultimate victory-"

"Ok! Not helping when you're tied to one of those dirty apes you're talking about!"

"Shut up! What would a dirty hairy ape like you know?!"

"I know that you've horribly tampered with SOOOOOO many books..."

"What?!"

"I know that you've changed the Berlin Wall thing. I know that you've mutilated the statue of Mao Zedong and turned it into an ugly hag bag. I know that you've replaced the angels on the Arc de Triomphe with man-demons. I know that you've-"

The governor interrupted his long rant with a shriek and tried to swing his head into the wall-

"NYANYANYANYA-" but he swung hs head down and strained her back, almost breaking her neck. He waited until she begged for mercy on her spine to reset them back to upright sitting position, "You no sneak up on me, woman!"

"Will you please just shut up!"

"Make me, wicker woman!"

"So help me that I'll-"

The van suddeny stopped.

"Whoa...the heck is going on?..." Sokoto questioned the environment. They heard someone step out nd run to the back doors. A rush of blinding light swept in and uncovered to reveal a female soldier.

"This way!" She called.

"The hell?" the governor asked dumbfoundedly.

"M!" Sokoto immdiately recognized her voice, "How did you set this up?"

"No time for that! Get out and get moving!" she untied them and dragged them out and into a nearby cave.

"The f****** f***, you f*****?!" she suddenly slammed him for causing the scenario to unfold.

"Hey!" he snapped back, "What's it to ya?!"

"Will someone please tell me what is going on-" the governor was about to flip her mind, but Madoka shoved a gun to her head.

"Not. One. Damn. Word." She silenced the governor, who now feared for her life. But there was one more problem to address. Madoka swerved the gun to Sokoto's head, "And YOU!"

"EEP!"He shot his hands up high.

"You just can't resist being the center of attention, can you?..."

"Oh, come on! I had it under control!"

"Did you really? 'Cuz you hella looked like her plaything-LOOK OUT!"

Madoka protected the group from a flurry of plasma bullets that struck at the cave's entrance, unknowingly opening up a huge weak spot for a certain blonde British woman to charge forth and ram into the trio.

"Guess who, renegade," she said violently.

"Ngh..." Sokoto felt her metallic knee on his stomach, "Glad to see Hogwarts trained you well, Miss Grainger-AAAAGH!" Of all the offensive jokes you could've avoided...

"Ugh...what in the-" Madoka recovered from the impact of the strike just to see what had become of their last encounter, "No...Oh, no no no no no WHAT DID YOU DO THIS TIME?!" The Blue Tears wasn't supposed to have a Second Shift! What keeps awakening these hidden powers?!

She didn't have time to worry about it. She quickly strapped a "Canceller" onto Cecilia, forcefully recalling her IS and freeing Sokoto, who immediately ran for the cave entry. But he stopped short of two feet when he saw three more IS pilots and two army transport vehicles coming in fast. "Heheh...some homecoming party, eh?" he said nervously.

Madoka rushed to his side to witness the ensuing kickoff, "What in the holy mother of f***?..."

"RRRAAAAYAAAAA!" Cecilia broke the Canceller and redeployed her IS. The two turned around and faced the now fully enraged Mermaid's Tears, who delivered an ultimatum on a global scale, "We have your surrounded and overwhelmed. All footage is being shown to the international community. What do you plan to do now, dillweed?"

"Well?" Sokoto turned to Madoka, "Any ideas?"

She quickly scanned her surroundings to find a way out. One IS in Second Shift in a narrow tunnel leading to God-only-knows-where, and a giant army right behind them. She took just five seconds to formulate a plan.

"Just one," she finally said, "Charge ahead!"

"What?" Sokoto screamed in disbelief, but Madoka simply turned to face Cecilia.

"Follow me!" she literally ran towards Cecilia.

"Hey, what-" Sokoto was dragged into Madoka's escape plan yet again, only this time into certain doom. Cecilia launched her drones at them while they ran along the opposite sides of the wall, dodging the drone fire as they climb towards the top. They were about to cross overhead when Cecilia jammed her arms into the tunnel walls, catching them off the ceiling and shoving them into the ground. What nobody knew was that Madoka had stolen a flash-bang-sound and EMP Burst grenade from a soldier she knocked out earlier to sneak into the van. She made sure to close her eyes while she loosed them both during her collision with the arm. When the other pilots arrived to subdue the renegade and his accomplice, the grenades fell right behind Cecilia. The explosion caught everyone's attention and stunned them.

"UHH...I...can't...ugh..." Cecilia let go of her captives to try and fight off her urge to puke, plugging her ears as a form of recoil.

"My IS!" Clarissa sounded out, "Commander, something's wrong!"

"Come on, blubber ball!" Madoka got up and carried Sokoto away from the confusion towards the back of the tunnel.

"Milady!" Somebody shouted, "They're escaping!"

"Commander, circle around to the back!" another soldier shouted, "Everyone else, chase them to the dead end!"

"Um..." Sokoto questioned as he was literally being heaved all the way, "Not to be a buzzkill or anything, but...where the hell are we going?"

"Away from here!" Madoka said under her breath, "We have to stall until we can find a safe place to hide!"

"Hide? WE'RE IN A TUNNEL! WHAT PART OF HIDING DO YOU FIND BENEFICIAL IN THIS GIANT FALLOPIAN TUBE?!"

"Why don't we get you a joke book after we-"

Dead end. Well, not really, if you don't count the 100-story pitfall, which technically doesn't count as a dead end. Instant death? More than certainly.

"Dammit...what do we do now?..." Madoka exasperated.

"Surrender or die." The sound of Clarissa's commanding voice swerved the fugitives' attention towards the battalion, who were now pointing their guns at them.

"We have to fight them off!" Sokoto said as he stared down the menacing gazes of the soldiers, "We can't let them take us in for their taboo practices!"

"We're f****** outnumbered 100 to 1, a**wipe..." Madoka muttered.

"Just die already!" someone shouted, "Open fire now!"

All the soldiers in the front row fired on the two of them. Since Madoka had bulletproof armor, she immediately shielded Sokoto from the gunfire and nudged him closer and closer to the edge of the cliff.

"Rrgh..." Sokoto hissed, "If only Silvia were here..." Still missing her, apparently. Even more so now that-

"Out of my way!" Cecilia emerged with her Blue Pierce FULLY CHARGED, "They're mine!

"Madoka!" Sokoto pointed at the rifle.

"No...that'll kill us!" For the first time ever, Madoka now feared for her life, if only for a moment.

"Ok. Fine." Clarissa recalled her IS and backed the f*** off, "They're yours. Everyone cower in fear."

But they never got a second's rest before Cecilia unleashed a gigantic laser right at the renegades. Madoka ducked and hugged Sokoto to shield him from the blast. A pointless gesture, as it blew their clothes and half of the cliff off and sent them plummeting to their deaths 500 meters below.

"Clarissa!" Laura contacted from the ridge above the tunnel, "Who fired that blast?!"

"It was Alcott, Commander."

"Right...we needed them alive..."

"It was a justified action."

"What is justified about-"

*WOOSH!*

"The hell?!" Indeed.

"What was that?!" one of the soldiers pointed to the moth-like flying contraption in the sky, causing a commotion among the ranks.

"No way they're escaping," Cecilia hissed after recovering from the shock that someone actually rescued them, "I'm going after them! Everyone else tell the public everything there is to know about this menace!" And she immediately took off after them. Everyone else just stood there, still unable to process the events of the past minute.

"You heard her!" Clarissa called everyone back to attention, "Back to your stations! The entire world must know! Phantom Task is still active!"

Meanwhile, on the ground...

Madoka and Sokoto were gently awakened by the touch of a mother's hand brushing against their hair. They slowly opened their eyes and worked their way into the living world around them. They questioned whether they were actually alive...

"What the heck..." Sokoto was still reeling from the blast's aftermath.

"Who...could..." Madoka's major functions were satisfactory, but combat-wise, she is out of commission until further notice.

... until their shoulders were burdened with arms pulling them closer together. Suddenly...

"Caught you, my little sleeping angels."

"AYATOLLAH RINGA LINGA!" Yeah, count on all of his jump scares to include random gibberish from now on.

"Ngh...shut up!" Madoka tried to swing her head towards the imaginary alarm clock-

"Come on, is that any way to address the person who saved you?"

"Huh...?" he took a few seconds to recognize that person, "He-he-hey! Squall!" He immediately embraced her.

"Hahah, it's good to see you too, renegade," and she responded by hugging him and patting his head.

But they had to postpone their reunion because she saw some soldiers spot them:

"It's..."

"They're here!"

"I've got them now!"

Squall shoved Sokoto back to Madoka's side, "Get M to the rendezvous point as soon as possible. I'll deal with these pests." She slowly walked towards the horde of soldiers with only a gun and plasma knife.

"Wait, what!" Sokoto couldn't believe it Not two seconds after he finally reunited with his companions must they now separate once again, "When will we meet up again?!" he asked her.

She turned back and look at him apologetically, "If everything goes according to plan...in a few weeks."

He blushed a bit. Before realizing what those words actually meant, "Ok...I trust you..."

She nodded, "Thank you, Sokoto..." She returned to her normal demeanor and jumped in the bushes, dropping bodies and stealing bullets a few moments later.

He contemplated jumping in to help, but the he noticed her companion in the skies. She was wreaking an immeasurable amount of chaos among the IS pilots, manipulating the situation to her favor with ease.

"Nah..." he silently said, "They got this."

"Th-this-this is REALLY reaching it, bro," Madoka brought him back to their current situation, "This is really reaching it."

"What? What'd I do?"

"Not only did you blatantly disobey the number one rule to stay f****** quiet...you were completely unaware that "Annalise" had metal-bending friends..."

Sokoto carried Madoka away from the fight zone and carried the conversation while on the run, "Yeah, so what?"

"So...now the country and its branches know we're alive now."

"And that's bad for us...why?"

"Squall and Autumn raided their target without making so much noise."

"News flash, pipsqueak. That's not how I roll."

"Pipsqueak?! Oh, now you're gonna get it, you flea-ridden-AGH!"

"Ok! Ok! Ok! I'll tone it down until you're fully restored..."

"Ugh...is everything a game to you?..."

"Nothing is a game to me because everything is LIKE a video game to me. Well...a video game with one save file and no opportunity to replay any part of Story Mode, anyway..."

"Ugh..."

And with that, they finally trailed away.

"Autumn," Squall said under her breath over her private comms, "M and the Renegade are out of vicinity."

"Good," Autumn responded, "Keep 'em busy." A wicked grin stretched across her face as she spread her arms (and wings) as if she was proclaiming the beginning of a new world order. "SHINOMURE! UNLEASH!"

One hour later...in an undisclosed location...

"So, that's how bad the crisis has become..."

"Yes. And if we don't act fast, this virus will spread to our homeland, which is the epicenter of Eastern IS Development, mind you."

"I am quite aware of our standing in the world, thank you."

"What should we do, President Lingyin?"

"Well, for now, we'll send an envoy to the IS Academy. Let them know that China has joined the hunt for the renegade."

 _And yet, another player joins the fight against the virus._

 _Unbeknownst to them that they have already infected the world now that the field operatives on the ground have taken to worldwide media to alert the masses of the impending attack._

 _What will become of those operatives, who can do little more than watch the world around them slowly lose its composure?_

 _What is to become of Phantom Task, who must now stay separated in order to survive?_

 _How will the players that be and the players that will be prepare for the viral attack?_

 _And how long can two star-crossed soulmates withstand the torture of being indefinitely separated?_

 _The longer they are parted, the stronger their bond grows. Until it becomes uncontainable and destroys the world around them._

 _Burn these words into your hearts as we await the next episode of Infinite Stratos: Virus._


End file.
